Racing Betting Online

RacingBetting.com welcomes visitors to our website about all types of online racing betting. We are always working hard to improve and expand on the information presented here – namely, how and where to bet on races on the web.

Numerous important factors should be considered when looking for a betting site. These include legality, banking, and quality of promotions – but none matter more than trust. Most of all, we believe in the importance of doing all your wagering at betting sites that are licensed and legal. Check back throughout 2017 for improvements and updates on all major races and industry news.

Types of Racing Betting Coverage:

We focus on two specific forms of racing betting: horses and greyhounds. These are what we know best and are the most qualified to speak on. We’re not here to give you a bunch of half-hearted articles that you could find at a hundred other websites. RacingBetting.com is designed to be a true resource for fans of these two closely related sports.

Horse and greyhounds are similar in some respects but they are most definitely different sports. The laws, places where you can bet and even handicapping strategies vary between horses and dogs. Our website reflects that as it is divided into two distinct sections.

Horse Racing

We are planning separate sections for fans of betting on horse races, including a worldwide guide to wagering on horse races. Most areas of the world will be covered but extensive coverage will include tracks in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Asia, and Europe.

Our guide to betting on horse racing will include tutorials on all types of bets and wagers, information about most horse race tracks, and coverage of major horse racing events worldwide. Thoroughbreds and harness racing will have their own dedicated sections.

You can head over to our horse racing section to get started right now with a thorough explanation of how horse betting works. Win, place and show bets are simple enough, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We already have more than 15 pages of content dedicated entirely to betting with more to come.

Wagering on greyhound dog races is rising in popularity in some countries and dwindling in others. We’ll teach you all dog racing bets work and list tracks and websites where you can make your bets. Fortunately the types of bets in greyhounds are similar to those found in horse racing. Any bet that you would make at a horse race can also be made at your local racetrack or website.

Speaking of websites, we also have plans to further discuss the legality of online greyhound betting across the world. This section will eventually explain how the laws work in different jurisdictions, which sites are licensed in which countries and much more.

The internet has been a real lifesaver for greyhound betting. Tracks are hard to find if you aren’t lucky enough to live near one. The industry has seen a decline in recent years but online betting is helping offset that. License greyhound sites actually pool online wagers with the wagers placed in person and that has done a lot for liquidity, purses and overall profitability.

What’s nice about greyhound betting is your comfort with this sport will transfer over pretty well to horse racing (and vice versa). Sure, there are differences but you won’t have any problems understanding the betting system and familiarizing yourself with the track atmosphere.

We’ll be focusing mostly on internet betting here, but much of what you read can also be applied to real life races. That’s one of the other great things about racing betting: it’s based on a real sporting event that actually takes place somewhere in the world. It gives you a sense of satisfaction to watch your bets play out in front of you. That’s something you can’t say about traditional casino gambling.

How Parimutuel Betting Works

Both horses and greyhounds are bet upon in the form of parimutuel wagering. The vast majority of the wagers you will ever place on either type of event will be in the parimutuel format. We might as well explain it now since you’ll be working in this format from now on.

The word “parimutuel” is of French origin and roughly translates to “mutual betting.” In parimutuel wagering, all bets taken for a single event are pooled together. The house takes a percentage as its commission and then pays the winners by dividing up the remaining pool and distributing it among the winners.

The payout odds are determined by taking all the money in the betting pool and then dividing it equally among all the winners of each type of bet. This is why the most popular horses (the favorites) always pay the least. There are more people betting on the popular horses and therefore the pool must be split among a greater number of people if that horse does indeed win the race. There are simply more winners.

This is also way the least popular horses (the underdogs) pay the most. When underdogs win, there are fewer people to pay. The entire betting pool is split among the few people who backed the longshot underdog. Each winner’s share is larger because there are fewer winners to pay.

Things can get quite complicated in a race that involves multiple horses, thousands of bettors and dozens of different types of bets. But for now, let’s leave it at that. We’ll be adding an in-depth article about parimutuel wagering in the near future.

Legal Racing Betting Sites

What’s nice about online racing betting is that it is a legal and regulated activity – even in the United States. The racing industry has considerable political clout and has so far managed to have exceptions squeezed into every major piece of anti-gambling legislation to come out of Washington. While other forms of online wagering wander around in questionable legal territory, online horse racing is unquestionably, 100% legal.

The major horse racing sites here in the US are all licensed by state racing commissions and operate freely in most states. This fact alone makes horse and greyhound racing a significantly safer way to bet online in comparison to other types of online betting.

So with all that said, we’ve compiled a list of the major US-based racing betting sites and reviewed each one. Even though all regulated sites are safe places to play, not all are the same. Some will undoubtedly fit your needs better than others. You can start narrowing down the list of places to bet by taking a look at our reviews here:

Sign Up Bonuses

One thing today’s regulated sites have in common with yesterday’s unlicensed sites is deposit bonuses. Competition among racebooks has prompted them to offer larger and larger signup bonuses to new customers. The basic idea is that you sign up for an account and make a deposit. In return, the betting site gives you extra money to place bets.

You should keep in mind that this money does come with certain terms and conditions. More specifically, you’ll be asked to place a certain number of real money wagers before you can withdraw the bonus money. This is done to ensure that you’re there to actually bet on horses, not just to get free cash.

Get all the details plus details on the bonuses offered by all the major racebooks:

Track Coverage

Real world racetracks need betting sites almost as much as betting sites need the tracks. Most racetracks in the country have struggled to put up impressive attendance numbers in recent years thanks to changing demographics and increased competition from other forms of entertainment. Online racing gives real world tracks a geographic reach that they could have never hoped to accomplish just a few years ago.

Licensing agreements set it up so that wagers placed online are pooled with wagers taken in person at each track. The end result has been a surge in purses, greater betting handle and increased revenue for struggling tracks.

The vast majority of racetracks in the US plus tracks in other countries are open to wagering online. The best racing betting sites cover tracks all across North America, Europe and Asia.

Other Info

Below is a list of other topic we plan to discuss here at RacingBetting.com. This is a big work in progress but we’re making progress every day. Hang tight and visit us again over the next couple weeks to read more about the world of horse and greyhound racing.